DPH5005 Power Supply

Ruideng just sent me their latest power supply and case… or rather, the kit. The control board is assembled as is the display board.

You get case, fan, switch, fan PSU and bags of nuts, bolts, washers and wire. What could possibly go wrong?

Let’s get the link out of the way – this is the Ruideng official store. You’ll find the 5005 and other supplies there.

I started at 9am this morning with a box full of tricks and a case, grabbed coffee and armed the stopwatch.

By 9:15am I’d read the instructions (part Chinese, part English) sufficiently to know what I had to do – so I opened up the box. Notice who spotless that case top is – it won’t stay that way, so enjoy.

All very organised I have to say and the parts and case are high quality. Just as well if you’re planning in banging out up to 250 watts!

The first thing I did was to fit the fan and the little board at the back which handles the on-off switch and the fan power, along with the on-off switch itself.

WRONG – wire up the board FIRST, THEN fit it (15 minutes lost).

The wires are fairly thick so you’ll need the soldering iron turned up. Not got a soldering iron? Stop at this point.

So that little board you see above, note the bottom right – red-black wires – they go to the fan. On the left, top to bottom – the output (thick wires) to the control board, then in the middle the two wires going to the on-off switch and finally the bottom two wires that say 5v +/- well, they go to the fan. That’s it for that board which mounts directly on the input banana sockets.

Here’s another view of the board – front is to the right – I’ve already pushed in the display panel and attached the connectors – all very easily and precisely I may add.

And here below is the unit with a lot more assembly… you can see the two ribbon cables (impossible to get wrong) connecting the front display panel to the actual controller…. then the thick red and black power lines. Note the fan on the main controller and of course the fan I fitted to the case.

And here, above is the completed power supply, no bodging, all very substantial – works a TREAT… but two things I’d like to point out.

The first – entirely my fault – this is an aluminium case and therefore easy to scratch. I turned the unit upside down to tighten some screws and of course I had some shrapnel on the bench which has scratched the case. Lesson: put some paper or a cloth down there when you’re working!

The second – well, when I tested the unit in open air all seemed fine – but now that it is running with the case closed, I can hear that fan clearly – louder for example than the Korad KA3005D supply that is currently providing DC power to this little unit.

I checked to see which fan was making the most noise. Result… the one on the back panel – you can’t hear the fan on the main board (or maybe it only comes on under full load). The back panel fan however is on all the time. Not wanting to try to change a surface mount resistor as advised elsewhere, I simply put a pair of IN4001 diodes in series with the fan which has brought the noise to a more sensible level.

I love it, it’s a cute supply – I could see them all over the place (I have another pair of differently rated units but no cases which limits their usability). Has anyone put one of these together and noticed the fan noise? I’m sure it can be improved and this is a minor comment on an otherwise excellent little power supply. See the original blog for actual operation. Essentially you can control voltage (in this case up to 50v assuming you have 55v DC powering the unit (I plan to put my solar kit at 30+volts onto it back in Spain) and you can also limit the maximum current up to 5 amps. There is also an output on/off button bottom right. You have memories and LCD brightness control – but look at original blog for more on that.

Standing current is around 90ma (in my case at 20v input). Note that the output voltage has to be higher than the input voltage. Like others, the unit claims maximum voltage output of 50v – but also claims maximum input of 50v – so really the maximum output will be a volt or so less than that.

All in all I spent about 3 hours putting that unit together. Time well spent.

I used 2 diodes in series with the fan and reduced noise a lot. The problem with the suggestion to replace a resistor is potential for damage - and the assumption that everyone is happy soldering surface mount components... also my box does hot have detachable front and back so taking that panel off is a pain... easier for me to use a couple of diodes...

I have the DPS5020 and the fan board had me initially stumped. The actual wiring was with pictures that didn't clearly show the wiring. Luckily I found enough pictures to verify the wiring. My final path would have been to look up the parts are reverse engineer the board. I haven't powered it up yet as I have to find my crimping tool. I won't be using solder for the possibility of high currents.

I love the case and it's color. But the case doesn't have a method to pass the serial interface (Bluetooth) or USB. I'm not sure how I will deal with that yet.

I have that case - and I do have a version of the board with communications... not entirely sure how to mount the microUSB board to make the connector appear in that hole though.... and clearly, mounting the Bluetooth version inside a metal case won't work...

First this "Note that the output voltage has to be higher than the input voltage." seems to be wrong way around... Typically the input has to be higher than output, but in this case...

... Secondly, unlike the DPS (note "S") models that are buck-type, these DPH (note "H") models are buck-boost (or apparently more correctly, combination of boost and buck) type, and can (or at least should be able to) actually give any output voltage from 0 to nominal maximum, independent of the input voltage. There are some limitations at high power levels, though; from official store's wall of text: "If you want to ensure output at full load, you must make sure that input is higher than 28V and 280W". I guess the input current would get too high at low input voltage levels.

I have got one of these modules (DPH5005 as well) together with the different optional boards.
I have noticed on the first image at the top of this page that "someone" powered this module with 54.86V.

Now, I am just wondering if anybody really powered it at this voltage and got an output without destroying this tiny board.
I would be interested to know because, in the specs, the max input voltage is limited at 50V!
I must say that I have a few fixed power supplies that are above 50 (volts not years) and would like to use them...
Thanks for your help.

1N4007 is fine for the fan to reduce noise.
I followed another approach, which is a little more work but the fan is silent until the internal heatsink gets above 45C. I ordered a NO thermal switch and it controls the case fan. The metal switch body should be kept electrically isolated from the heatsink as it would otherwise be shorted to gnd or 5V. I used a piece of thermal isolating pad and a plastic strip to hold the thermal switch between the 2 transistors.

Another question... is the output of DPH5005 isolated from the input? I'm interested to use the PSU to power Arduino/Raspberry Pi boards (and build simple circuits) and using an oscilloscope to probe GPIO pins. I am a beginner in electronics hobby and would love to learn more.

Without making any guarantees or accepting any liability, it is safe to touch the outputs (assuming you don't make a mess of installation). Why not email Ruideng directly? The guy there is very helpful. I use these for building prototypes too.

Some comments for the housing :
- some regulation for the fan is required (manual or automatic like on some of the card). At this time the fan is too noisy 🙁
- it is a bit of a pitty that it does not include a JST socket (either already soldered or to solder) to plug in the fan. Cutting the wire looks a bit unprofessional to me.
- power for the DPH 5005, I would expect that the USB would be integrated with the main board but includes some USB galvanic isolation.

And finally, it would be nice to have another USB port to power the DPH as basic power source for low power requirements.

I have the DPH5005. Not worried about the noise as i'm using the unit at work. Has anyone succeeded in controlling the unit outside of the supplied software package?

I want to auto sequence voltage changes faster than 1 second intervals which seems to be the minimum time value in the software. I also want the output to remain on at the end of the sequence - but the longest time slice seems to be 60 seconds. Cryptic clues on programming in C++ would be welcome.

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